For decades, new drugs have been found in exotic animals and plants.
Genes from rare species and subspecies are also useful in producing
new breeds, whether by genetic engineering or ordinary cross-breeding.
The drugs, and nowadays the new breeds as well, are typically
patented. This causes trouble for developing countries that could use
them.

Patent monopolies on plant and animal varieties, on genes, and on new
medicines, threaten to harm developing countries in three ways.
First, by raising prices so far that most citizens have no access to
these new developments; second, by blocking local production when the
patent owner so chooses; third, for agricultural varieties, by
forbidding farmers to continue breeding them as has been done for
thousands of years.

Just as the United States, a developing country in the 1800s, refused
to recognize patents from advanced Britain, today's developing
countries need to protect their citizens' interest by shielding them
from such patents. To prevent the problems of monopolies, don't
establish monopolies. What could be simpler?

But developing countries need support from world opinion in order to
do this. It means going against a view that companies strongly
advocate: that biotech company investors are entitled to monopolies,
regardless of how they affect anyone else. It means going against
treaties that these companies have prevailed on the US to impose,
through threats of economic warfare, on most of the world.

To challenge an idea which is backed by so much money is not easy. So
some have proposed the concept of "biopiracy" as an alternative
approach. Instead of opposing the existence of biological monopolies,
this approach aims to give the rest of the world a share in the
profits from them. The claim is that biotechnology companies are
committing "biopiracy" when they base their work on natural varieties,
or human genes, found in developing countries or among indigenous
peoples--and therefore they ought to be required to pay "royalties"
for this.

"Biopiracy" is appealing at first glance, because it takes advantage
of the current trend towards more and bigger monopoly powers. It goes
with the flow, not against. But it will not solve the problem,
because the problem stems from the trend that this concept legitimizes
and fails to criticize.

Useful varieties and genes are not found everywhere or with even
distribution. Some developing countries and indigenous peoples will
be lucky, and receive substantial funds from such a system, at least
for the twenty years that a patent lasts; a few may become so rich as
to cause cultural dislocation, with a second episode to follow when
the riches run out. Meanwhile, most of these countries and peoples
will get little or nothing from this system. "Biopiracy" royalties,
like the patent system itself, will amount to a kind of lottery.

The "biopiracy" concept presupposes that natural plant and animal
varieties, and human genes, have an owner as a matter of natural
right. Once that assumption is granted, it is hard to question the
idea that an artificial variety, gene or drug is property of the
biotechnology company by natural right, and thus hard to deny the
investors' demand for total and world-wide power over the use of it.

The idea of "biopiracy" offers the multinationals, and the governments
that work for them, an easy way to cement forever their regime of
monopolies. With a show of magnanimity, they can concede a small part
of their income to a few lucky indigenous peoples; from then on, when
anyone questions whether biological patents are a good idea, they can
cite these indigenous peoples along with the fabled "starving genius
inventor" to paint such questioning as plundering the downtrodden.

What people outside the developed world really need, for their
agriculture and medicine, is to be exempt from all such monopolies.
They need to be free to manufacture medicine without paying royalties
to multinationals. They need to be free to grow and breed all sorts
of plants and animals for agriculture; and if they decide to use
genetic engineering, they should be free to commission the genetic
modifications that suit their needs. A lottery ticket for a share of
royalties from a few varieties and genes is no compensation for losing
these freedoms.

It is indeed wrong for biotech companies to convert the world's
natural genetic resources into private monopolies--but the wrong is
not a matter of taking someone else's rightful property, it is a
matter of privatizing what ought to be public. These companies are
not biopirates. They are bioprivateers.

Copyright (C) 1997, 1999, 2000, 2001 Richard Stallman
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